


Our Divide

by AvaCelt



Series: EXO Prompt Fills [19]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-19
Updated: 2013-07-19
Packaged: 2017-12-20 16:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/889338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being in love with a man who doesn't love you back will always be the beginning of the best tragedies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Divide

The only ones who know is the stuffed crocodile Taemin gave him the previous year on his birthday, and the shared bathroom mirror that thankfully didn’t talk to the others.

“Saranghaeyo,” he tells himself. “Sarangha-”

“-you look like a saesang staring at Jaejoong hyung’s butt,” Sehun deadpans from the entrance of the bathroom.

An entrance Jongin is sure wasn’t present at first since he clearly remembers locking the door shut.

“It was unlocked, by the way,” Sehun coughs into his fist. “It was just shut, and I didn’t feel like waiting since I didn’t hear you peeing, so I just opened it.”

Jongin doesn’t bother turning around. He can see the smugness creeping along the edges of the younger man’s eyes, mocking him because of his incapabilities. He then remembers dimpled cheeks and soft smiles and a look of utter serenity- a serenity Jongin can never have.

“You know we can’t have relationships while were under contract. Imagine what would happen if Joon Myun hyung found out. Or Baek Hyun. They’d sell you out so quickly, you’d be put on a week’s worth of probation with no chance of redeeming yourself afterwards in the eyes of your colleagues. Emphasis on the colleagues part, Jongin-ah, since assuming that any of us are friends are what fanfic writers tell themselves day in, day out when in reality, we’re not.”

Jongin tries to recall the last time he slept. He has some idea that when he was asleep, his dreams were filled with the floating image of an older man speaking to him in broken Korean, asking him about how his injured lower back was doing, if he needed help with the choreography, if he wanted to eat some homemade Chinese food Zitao and Luhan could whip up in a blink of an eye. He remembers that the dreams were pleasant, albeit short-lived.

“So telling the mirror that you love it won’t help your case,” Sehun continues to drawl. “It also doesn’t help that you like to talk to a stuffed animal at night, and that you’re getting sloppier in the dance room. So take it from someone who might just be the only one who cares about your position in the band at the moment- forget her. Or him. Or them, if you’re into those group-sex things. It’s not worth it.”

Suddenly, Jongin wishes  _he_  was transferred into the M-subunit instead. He wishes he had more time to spend with their proposed “other half.” He wishes he could sit down and communicate in broken Chinese with four men who were ridiculed for their nationality the second they stepped foot into the training building. He wishes to sit down and get their side of their story, learn about their hardships and challenges before they became the top rookies in their company, before they became the idols they were today.

He wants to hear what Zhang Yixing has to say about being a child start, about performing with his hyung’s group as a dance stand-in, about being around three others who spoke his language, ate his food, dreamed his dreams. He wants to hear Zhang Yixing talk all night.

“Of course, I could always tell. I mean, that’s what the media has on me anyway. The quiet, overpowering maknae that makes life a living hell for his darling hyungs, and with a long-distance romance to add to his daily endeavors. And you’re their sexy, sultry dancing machine. Would you rather stay that way, or become yet another object used and abused by the very people you sold thirteen years of your life to?”

Jongin wonders if Wu Fan gives his bandmates the same kind of lecture when they have their nightly meetings. Does he tell them to forget about loving, and being loved? Does he remind them that they’re slaves to an institution they all willingly accepted? Does he tell them to shape up when they fall, or does he remind them that if they can’t handle the heat, they should leave like Jung Yunho purportedly told Shim Changmin in their earlier days? Jongin can only imagine what’s going to come next.

“Are you listening to me?” Sehun asks, his arms crossed over on his chest, a dark grimace on his face.

“Yes,” Jongin replies, because he has. He’s been listening for a long time now, but with his heart on his sleeve and with his mind on the prize. This is supposed to be the prize. Kai is supposed to be the prize. Thousands of fanletters, an gifts, and well wishes from people across the glove is supposed to be the prize.

“Dinner’s ready,” Sehun says, his grimace gone and face set in its default, blank expression. “It was Chanyeol and Joon Myun hyung’s turn to cook tonight. Yippee.”

“OK,” he replies. There’s no point in pretending about the emptiness in his stomach. Or the one in his heart.

He waits until Sehun leaves, and then follows out. Once he reaches the long dining table meant to accommodate them, he realizes there are only three chairs left, and they’re for the cooks and for him. He sits in between Kyung Soo, who’s sitting across from a talkative Baek Hyun. The food gets passed out, and the cooks sit down, and soon enough, a semblance of calm overtake the table as the members eat knowing they can rest peacefully tonight.

It comes to Jongin that he too can cook, and that when it’s his turn to feed the others, he’d choose something out of a Chinese recipe book to commemorate his acceptance of life conditions and move on from his alleged feelings for a certain man with iridescent eyes filled with mirth and dimples as deep as the ocean. Only to commemorate, he promises himself as he ills his mouth with the steamed rice and the long strips of cooked beef and vegetables.

“Why are you so down?” Baek Hyun asks somewhere around the time when they’re seated in the den and watching Sehun and Kyungsoo battle it out on their shared game console.

“Tired,” he responds automatically. It’s been his answer for years now.

“Maybe you should sleep,” Joon Myun suggests.

Jongin can feel Sehun glancing at him from the corner of his eye.

“It’s OK,” he responds, pulling his lips into a smile he knows is as believable as the things they read on the Internet. But Baek Hyun and Joon Myun know a quiet soul when they see one, so Baek Hyun does him a favor and scoots away to give him more space. Their eyes return back to the screen with its guns, zombies, and green goo and all Jongin can think of are eyes as brown as the warm soil beneath his feet back home and a smile so bright it could block out the darkness.

When he’s in his bed and under the covers that night, Sehun clears his throat.

“I want to be your friend,” he says. “You can have one friend, at the least.”

“I don’t want to be your friend,” Jongin says. Not because he doesn’t like the younger man or anything, but because he speaks the truth way too often for his heart to take.

“But I consider you my friend. And as a friend, I’m begging you to forget about them. Your life is over if you go through with your feelings.”

“I won’t,” Jongin promises, and it’s one he’s going to keep.

Sehun hesitates before his next words. “Maybe in a few years when our contracts are solid along with our fanbase. Then maybe… maybe we can do better with ourselves. Maybe we can get better conditions on our contracts, and then you can see your girlfr- lover. Then you can see your lover without having to have someone escort you on a car date. Then you can be free. Then you can be happy.”

“I know,” Jongin replies.

“Until then… can we be friends?”

“No,” Jongin says. Jongin’s not trying to be mean, just cautious. There’s only so much truth he can handle in one night, and  _friends_ \- they’re the next worst thing after lovers. If he can’t have one, he definitely doesn’t deserve the other.

He wonders if Yixing has friends in the band. He wonders if the four Chinamen are actual, super, secret friends who kept their friendships on the DL, and when the lights were out, pulled out their beers and softly strummed a guitar while reminiscing about home and all they’d left behind, speaking in a language only they understood while everyone else engrossed themselves in a cutthroat battle to become the face the of the group instead of the mere backup dancer. Or, he thinks, maybe they’re as vicious as everyone else. Jongin wonders if they can be as vindictive as some of the people he’s met and spoken to. He wonders if the Yixing he’s fallen for is as much of a ruse as Kai is.

“I don’t care,” Sehun says. “We’re friends.”

And Jongin remembers that Sehun’s the youngest and without a single person who actually cares if whether or not he wakes up with a stomach virus the following morning and if he can continue practicing for whatever show they have next. Sehun hasn’t fallen in love yet, but he’s fallen for a friendship and Jongin doesn’t know if he should take him up on his offer. He has yet to denigrate himself in the future, or denigrate someone else as a result of the self-loathing he knows is coming.

And he wonders if Yixing feels the same way. He wonders if he’s ever been so mean to someone that they’re forced to quit their place of work. He wonders if the Yixing he wants to kiss has every verbally cut someone so deep that they refuse to look him in the eye anymore. He wonders if he’s as uncouth as the rest.

“Maybe,” Jongin replies. “Goodnight, Sehun.”

That night, Jongin sees the same Zhang Yixing and his persistent smile. When he’s awakened the next morning by Sehun, he remembers not to say a word. He remembers not to show his true feelings, the pain that bubbles underneath the exterior that was Kai.

He reminds himself that the man he used to be was long gone, and that the heart on his sleeve would have to be put back in its rightful place and never given to another, lest he wished to lose everything.

And so, just like that, Zhang Yixing’s smile disappeared like wisps of smoke in the cold, January air.


End file.
